Vermont Reads: VT Tribes Formally Recognized

Abenaki scholar Fred Wiseman says Vermont was not a friendly place to be native for many years.

(Host)
All this week VPR is examining race as part of our 2011 collaboration with the
Vermont Humanities Council's Vermont Reads statewide reading program.

This
year the focus is on Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. The book examines
racial prejudices in the racially-divided south.

Vermont also has some difficult race challenges of its own,
in the first part of the 20th century eugenics promoted the idea of
racial purity.

For
the original Vermonters, the Abenaki, eugenics and racial prejudice led to a
life lived in the shadows, where their ancestry was hidden, not celebrated.

As
VPR's John Dillon reports, the Legislature has taken steps to put that history
behind us:

(singing and drumming)

(Dillon)
Roger Longtoe, chief of the Elnu band of Abenaki, sang the high, clear notes of
a greeting song in the governor's ceremonial office.

The
occasion was the signing of bills that grant official state status to two
Abenaki bands. The room was crowded with lawmakers and Native Americans, who
were there to mark the beginning of Abenaki recognition, and the end of a dark chapter
in Vermont history.

(Illuzzi) "Our predecessors passed
a law, which as a matter of public policy, deemed Native Americans as
undesirable."

(Dillon)
Essex Orleans Senator Vince Illuzzi has worked on Abenaki issues since the
early 1990s.

That's
when the late Caledonia senator Julius Canns, who was part Cherokee, pushed
for a resolution recognizing Vermont's Native American communities.

Canns
had cancer, and didn't live long enough to see the bill pass. Illuzzi sees the
legislation as both fulfilling a promise to his late colleague and undoing the
legacy left by the eugenics movement. In the 1930s, the state-sanctioned list
of "undesirables" who could be sterilized included Native Americans.

(Illuzzi) "We actually took
testimony in the early 90s from individuals who were told by their grandparents:
‘Never admit you are Abenaki, never admit you are Indian, because if state
officials find out about it, you may end up getting sterilized.' "

(Dillon)
Before Europeans settlement, the Western Abenaki once lived across Vermont,and northern New England. At least 1,700 Vermonters trace their ancestry back to those native
people.

State
recognition means two Abenaki tribes now qualify for federal education grants
and can sell their crafts as native-made. Chief Don Stevens represents the
Nulhegan band based in the Northeast Kingdom.

(Stevens) "We have here affected
the next seven generations of our children. I mean they can be proud, hold
their head up high. They can be eligible for scholarships in the future. We
have now a working relationship, an official working relationship with the
state of Vermont."

(Dillon)
Fred Wiseman is an author, archaeologist and professor at Johnson State
College. As Abenakis gathered in the spring sunshine on the Statehouse steps,
Wiseman dug into some cloth bags to display artifacts that link their present
to the past.

(Wiseman) "This is an original,
late 17th early 18th century medal that came from the
Abenaki territory."

(Dillon)
Wiseman has put together a study guide for schools to use to teach Vermont children about Abenaki culture.

(Wiseman) "Vermont was certainly
not a friendly place to be native, because, well, you know, the French and
Indian War. So the Abenaki community were both Indian. Bad. French. Bad, and
they were Catholic. Bad. So this heritage had to contract in."

(Dillon)
Wiseman has served as a scholar for the Vermont Commission on Native American.
He's helped the panel review requests for recognition. The process has been controversial.

Some
have charged that people with little or no native blood are being recognized as
Abenaki. A recent meeting of the Vermont Commission on native American Affairs
degenerated into a shouting match between rival bands.

But
Wiseman says genealogical proof isn't the whole story.

(Wiseman) "For example, my
grandmother was of Abenaki descent, but because of eugenics and things we
didn't keep any of that in my family. So the genealogy is only a small part of
it. It's keeping the culture alive. It's keeping the crafts, it's keeping the
beliefs; it's keeping the technology. So it's a whole system. To be a culture,
yes, you do have to have ancestry. But for me as an archaeologist and
anthropologist, of course, the most important thing is the culture itself."

(Dillon)
Wiseman and other advocates say state recognition will not lead to land claims
or casinos built on native land. What it does mean, they say is that the
Abenaki can now take their legitimate place in the unfolding story of Vermont.